Need To Know: Young Heart Productions

Young Heart Productions is Micah Weisberg and Bill Dvorak, who are one half of the Brooklyn-based band The Teen Age. When they started rapid-fire producing low-budget-but-still-cool music videos for their own band, they realized they were onto something: there was definitely a need for inexpensive video production for the legions of cash-strapped, super talented musicians that reside within the five boroughs of Brooklyn. So they opened house on their own production company, quickly racking up a client list that reads like the who’s who of youthful NYC-residing indie rock.

Recently, we dropped the duo a line to talk to them about crowdsurfing pineapples, Dad’s old VHS camera, and Pizza Face. Trust us, it makes sense eventually. After the jump.

How did you guys meet?

We’ve been playing music together for several years now. We started making inexpensive videos for our current band, The Teen Age, so we know what’s it like to be a bit budget-strapped and in need of a quickly-produced, clever video to promote a song. That’s one of the things that sets us apart from other production companies. We’re dudes in a band who help other dudes and dudettes in bands get their videos made…fast, cheap and with a sense of humor.

What inspired you to start this production company? What did you hope to achieve with it?

After our third or fourth video premiered online, we decided to create a one-stop shop for all music video related needs. HD, VHS, film…whatever aethestic your band is looking for, we can do it.

We hope Young Heart will become a go-to company for artists at all levels…whether you’re on a label or making music out of your bedroom. We wanna be the guys who help you visualize your sound through images and story.

How long have you been around so far? How many videos have you made?

Young Heart Productions is 5 months old…still fresh, but very hungry. We just wrapped our 9th music video for a really great rock duo called The Glazzies on Old Flame Records. As of now, we have 4 more projects lined up this Fall.

What do you hope to happen in the future?

We’d love for our name to spread around town and beyond the boroughs. Hoping to work with some great musicians from all different genres, and also expand to documentaries, and commercial work. Keep an eye out for a very spooky video we made for the band Dreamers. There are some grisly murders taking place in that one. And a secret twist ending! Also our video for Eastern Hollows, complete with trippy, eye-popping visuals.

This is kind of the one that started it all. Our friend Aman (who goes by DJ name Aimes) wanted a simple concept: A pineapple goes on vacation in NYC. We workshopped this storyline and decided the pineapple should go clubbing and have a wild night on the town, which may or may not end well.

We shot it on an old VHS camera that my dad used to record our childhood home movies on. That vintage look works so well with the vibe of the song. It was also amazing to see people’s reactions to a personified fruit. Once you put sunglasses on it, EVERYONE wanted to dance and crowd surf the pineapple. Really fun to make.

Our second collaboration with Dead Stars, one of our favorite Brooklyn bands. Their bass player John is also a puppeteer and had this underdog story of a big blue puppet having a bummer day at the beach.

We had a very tight production schedule and there was a delay with the camera equipment rental a day before we were heading to The Rockaways. So we decided to just shoot the entire thing on an iPhone 5. The video quality is surprisingly good. We rigged up a little mount for the phone and got some really interesting angles with it. Definitely proud of how this one came out.

Shark? always brings a clever sense of humor to their videos. We loved Kevin’s willingness to shave off his 8-year old beard in this clip. The trick was to set up a single shot to appear as if he was looking directly into a bathroom mirror and still have room behind him for the ensuing chaos to unfold after his face was clean…definitely our messiest video to date.

Kevin was a great sport…we covered him in shaving cream, chocolate sauce, pasta…it was crazy. We still crack up every time Jared jumps out in the wolf man mask. Even Pizza Face makes a cameo.